David Yates Planning Doctor Who Feature Film

For the first time in decades, Doctor Who is headed to the big screen. Variety reports that four-time Harry Potter director David Yates is planning to bring the Timelord to theaters everywhere, though apparently not for a few years.

“We’re going to spend two to three years to get it right,” says Yates. “…We’re looking at writers now.”

The longest running science fiction series of all time, “Doctor Who” celebrates its 50th anniversary next year. The original series ran a record 26 seasons with a popular continuation resuming in 2005 and currently prepping its sixth series.

The show tells the adventures of the enigmatic Doctor who travels time and space and who, through the course of the show, has been played by eleven different actors (thanks to his alien ability to “regenerate” in new forms whenever he dies). Peter Cushing also played the character in two films in the 1960s, Doctor Who and the Daleks and Daleks’ Invasion of Earth 2150 A.D., neither of which tie into the expansive continuity of the series.

In a move sure to polarize fans, Yates says that the film version will not tie into any incarnations of the series.

“It needs quite a radical transformation to take it into the bigger arena,” he says. “…Russell T. Davies and then Steven Moffat have done their own transformations, which were fantastic, but we have to put that aside and start from scratch.”

“Doctor Who” is set to return to the airwaves this December with an as-of-yet untitled Christmas special starring Matt Smith as the Doctor.